The surreal world

There’s a woman on television shouting at a group of investment advisors. “What are the financials?” she shrieks. “It’s been a sharp week for the market. Is it still possible to invest in stocks without losing money?” Given that the men are portfolio managers, it seems rather a waste of time.
She is one of CNN’s many Sexy Presenters, the ones who wear heavy Sophia Loren-style eyeliner, spill cleavage, and look as if they are about to bite your shoulder. When I lived in the US in the early 90s the CNN ladies were iron maidens, wrapped tight as bandages in jewel-toned blazers (red! green! royal blue!), their earlobes stretched by the weight of their shield-like gold clip-on earrings. They gave the impression that they were always tired, that after they deconstructed Clinton’s first 100 days in office they were off to a kindergarten open house, and then a cocktail party at the hubby’s office. I’m not for a moment suggesting that you can’t be both attractive and authoritative but I felt a fondness for the battle-mommies that I don’t feel for these lush chicks who waft across the screen in Manolo Blahniks and bed hair.

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It was a bad morning in the Montgomery BART station on Friday. The man with no legs who usually panhandles up on the street corner had taken the elevator down into the station and positioned his wheelchair right by the exit, so commuters had to pass his outstretched hand to get to work. The drunk guy who is usually asleep on the tiled floor, a brown-bagged bottle in hand, had propped himself up against the wall and was gazing into the middle distance. I can’t figure out how old he is—his hair is mostly grey, he’s lost a lot of teeth, his skin is red and leathery, and his circulation looks very poor indeed given his purple feet, but he could be in his late 40s. The punk cowboy—cherry red mohawk, motorcycle boots, studded leather pants, studded leather vest, fleshy bare arms—who often performs in my station of a morning stood across from the drunk guy strumming his guitar and singing Johnny Cash. “Because you’re mine, I walk the line...” It was a surreal scene, and hard to dismiss.

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Craigslist has been good to us. For those of you who are unfamiliar, it’s like a giant newspaper classifieds section, except it’s online, free, and offers a ton more stuff. We found our apartment on Craigslist, I got my job through Craigslist, and now we’ve made our first purchase through Craigslist. Craig, by the way, is a San Francisco guy who made millions when he sold his site, and still manages it. There are hundreds of Craigs in the Bay Area and Silicon Valley. It makes you sick.
Anyhoo, Crowded House is playing in Oakland at the end of next month and Tim was determined to go. I too was keen, but felt a bit conflicted about it because I had been given the job of procuring tickets to their earlier concert at a winery down south and…didn’t. Was in dog box for several days. But I redeemed myself by stumbling on the aforementioned tickets on Craigslist. I emailed the seller and sent my cell number, which made me feel all nervous cos what if the seller was a psychopath, or direct marketer or something? Didn’t hear a peep for days and thought the tickets must be gone and I would have to move to the dog box permanently. But, luck shone on me yesterday, cos the seller, a softspoken man named Peter, rang and said the tickets were still available. I could have them but would need to drive to a supermarket in San Ramon (40 minutes away) to get them because he didn’t want to send them through the mail and would not accept a cheque from me. Pain in the butt. However, we were already at SFO dropping off our friend Steve (Hi Yvette!) so figured we may as well take a tiki tour of the East Bay and get tickets at the same time. We arrived, cash in hand, at Nob Hill Foods in San Ramon—hot as Hades and a nasty shock after the mild cool in SF—and met a boy-man holding a white envelope. It was Peter, not scary or weird at all. He’d won the tickets in a radio competition and his good fortune became our good fortune: he gave us the tickets for $50 a pop, significantly less than the going rate. Thank you, Craig.